Last week, South Africa celebrated Mandela Day. 18 July was Nelson Mandela's birthday. At some point, someone decided that the best way to honour the legacy of Mandela was to encourage people to volunteer 67 minutes on his birthday to help others. This sounds like a good idea. Replace volatile rallies, endless speeches and the risk of the legacy being politicised, with getting people to commit to helping others.
Instead, South Africa has managed to turn voluntourism into a national sport. Yes, I know local volunteering normally avoids the pitfalls of voluntourism; this doesn't. All the problems with rich (white) people popping over to Africa/Asia/South America to "volunteer" by hugging smiling babies for a week-long vacation, crammed into one day of the year. Into 67 minutes, even. This is not volunteering to work with children, to read to the elderly or to work with food security projects. It's not the same thing when doing these things for 67 minutes on one day of the year makes you a good guy or a good company or a good Friday afternoon ladies book club group.
And of course, not only can people feel great about their act of "selfless charity", but they get to talk about it too. South Africa's media very obligingly talks of little else and creates plenty of space for individuals and businesses to publicize how wonderful they are for taking part in this charade.
For business, and particularly corporate social investment departments, it's a very welcome gift. Instead of all the bother of sorting through endless funding requests or going out and checking that NGOs actually exist, they can just "do Mandela Day". What better way to motivate your staff than to pay for them (transport, T-shirts, packed lunches) to spend 67 minutes volunteering at a soup kitchen or donating clothes at an orphanage or (this year's run-away favourite) handing out food parcels at under-resourced schools? What better way to spend your CSI budget - tax-deductible, minimal effort and all ...
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